News:

It’s my beautiful book birthday! Extreme family dinner horror novel Question Not My Salt is officially available as an ebook (paperback to come). It’s a short, rollicking, roiling read, and you can enjoy it any time of year or save it as a Thanksgiving treat. Thank you to Kenneth W. Cain and Crystal Lake Entertainment for everything they’ve done to help QNMS come to life!

Elaine Pascale gave a wonderful review at Hellnotes, saying, “Question Not My Salt left me questioning many things non-spice related. I questioned the place of torture porn in written horror. I questioned myself as I was devouring this piece of extreme horror as if it were a pleasant travel essay. I questioned why I was not reading more of Blake’s writing.”

Horror Reads, who provided my first review, included Question Not My Salt on his list of “Three Shorter Horror Books to Break Your Mind!” at his YouTube channel.

I also participated in a live podcast episode last night, the Panic Room Radio Show through Hellbound Books, to talk about horror and read an excerpt from QNMS and completely forgot to share that I was doing it so that people could, you know, listen live. However, I should have a link to the episode to share by next week’s update.

Works in Progress:

I’ve only ever had to scrap a novel once before, but I’m afraid I have to do that with Silver & Steel (Meridian 7), at least in its present incarnation. Character plans I had ended up changing when the characters decided to go in different directions, which then removed all the intended external conflict, and in urban fantasy, external conflict is essential. I stopped writing around 35K words in, which is better than the last time I quit a novel, which was at over 70K words.

I’ve summarized a few intended scenes, suggested a few changes, and asked myself some questions that can give me the framework for a new novel, which I’ll probably write later this year so I can put some distance between this version and the next. I would still like to finish the Meridian series this year, but I’m noodling on adding one or two novels to the list, so that may be out of the question anyway.

I’m frustrated, because I wanted that under my belt, or mostly so, before I started looking for employment and hopefully getting hired somewhere. But I didn’t want to waste any more of my time on a novel that was sputtering.

Right now I’m working on a novelette that I don’t really know what to do with, but it’ll be ready, whatever that is. Next week, I polish my resume and start submitting applications, and I’ll probably proceed to edit Book & Candle (Meridian 5) in the afternoons and evenings.

Books I’m Reading:

IT by Stephen King
Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire
Ending in Ashes by Rebecca Jones-Howe

Things I’m Listening To:

Billie Eilish
Fleurie
Ruelle
Lily Kershaw
Once More With Feeling soundtrack
Stigmata soundtrack

Things I’m Watching:

Contracted
Contracted: Phase II
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series (watchalong)
Angel series (watchalong)
CSI series
The Mentalist series
The Irrational series
Helix series
Queer Eye series
Ghosts (US) series
Not Dead Yet series
All Creatures Great and Small series
Murder, She Wrote series

Poem of the Week:

I cannot promise sunrise
over massacre scene,
nor unburnished gold
or sterling silver clean.
Stars will reflect red
where moon will demean,
your fairest flesh shine
unfairly unknown, unseen
except by the feral,
the cruel, and the mean.
When I have no more rubies
and hungry times are lean,
will you still bleed for me,
my beautiful, bloody Queen?